FOOTNOTES
[1] About this time the settlers on the upper Ohio River (in what is now West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania) became eager for statehood. Both Virginia and Pennsylvania claimed their allegiance. They asked Congress, therefore, for recognition as the state of Westsylvania, the fourteenth province of the American Confederacy. Congress did not grant their prayer.
[2] Read Thompson's Alice of Old Vincennes.
[3] Farther east, meantime, a band of savages led by Colonel John Butler swept down from Fort Niagara, entered Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania, near the site of Wilkes-Barre, and perpetrated one of the most awful massacres in history (July 4, 1778). (Read Campbell's poem Gertrude of Wyoming). A little later another band, led by a son of Butler, burned the village of Cherry Valley in New York, and murdered many of the inhabitants—men, women, and children. Cruelties of this sort could not go unpunished. In the summer of 1779, therefore, General Sullivan with an army invaded the Indian country in central New York, burned forty Indian villages, destroyed their crops, cut down their fruit trees, and brought the Indians to the verge of famine.
[4] Congress now put Lincoln in command in the South; but when he marched into Georgia, the British set off to attack Charleston, sacking houses and slaughtering cattle as they went. This move forced Lincoln to follow them, and having been joined by Pulaski, he compelled the British to retreat.
[5] Four novels by Simms,—The Partisan, Mellichampe, Katharine Walton, and The Scout,—and Horseshoe Robinson, by Kennedy, are famous stories relating to the Revolution in the South. Read Bryant's Song of Marion's Men.
[6] A large number of men were killed, and a thousand taken prisoners. Among the dead was De Kalb. Among the living was Gates, who fled among the first and made such haste to escape that he covered two hundred miles in four days.
[7] The purpose of the attack on Stony Point was to draw the British from Connecticut. The capture had the desired result, and Stony Point was then abandoned. The fort stood on a rocky promontory with the water of the Hudson River on three sides. On the fourth was a morass crossed by a narrow road which at high tide was under water. The country between the British forces in New York and the American army on the highlands of the Hudson was known as the neutral ground, and is the scene of Cooper's great novel The Spy.
[8] The British were to come up the river and attack West Point. Arnold was to man the defenses in such a way that they could easily be taken, one at a time, and so afford an excuse for surrendering them, with the three thousand men under Arnold's command.
[9] The names of André's captors were John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart. Congress gave each a medal and a pension for life.
[10] To accomplish this Greene sent the greater part of his army northward under General Huger, while he with a small guard hurried across country, and took command of Morgan's army. And now a most exciting chase began. Cornwallis destroyed his heavy baggage that he might move as rapidly as possible, and vainly strove to get near enough to Greene to make him fight. Greene with great skill kept just out of reach and for ten days lured the British farther and farther north. At Guilford Court House Greene and Morgan were joined by the main army. Cornwallis then proclaimed North Carolina conquered, and called on all Loyalists to join him.
[11] Two good works relating to these events are The Forayers and Eutaw, by Simms.
[12] While these things were happening in the South, a French army of 6000 men under Rochambeau arrived at Newport (1780), from which the British had withdrawn in 1779. There, for a while, the French fleet was blockaded by the British, and the troops remained to aid the fleet in case of necessity. The next year, however, this army marched across Connecticut and joined Washington's forces (July, 1781), and preparations were begun for an attack on New York.
[13] When Clinton realized that Washington was on the way to Yorktown, he sent Arnold on a raid into Connecticut, in hope of forcing Washington to return. Early in September Arnold attacked New London, carried one of its forts by storm, and set tire to the town, but was driven off by the minutemen.
[14] Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin (our minister in France), John Adams (in Holland), John Jay (in Spain), Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Laurens to negotiate the treaty. Jefferson's appointment came too late for him to serve; the other four signed the treaty of 1782, and Franklin, Adams, and Jay signed the treaty of 1783.
[15] After the surrender of Cornwallis, Washington returned with his army to the Hudson and made his headquarters at Newburgh. In April, 1783, a cessation of war on land and sea was formally proclaimed, and the British prepared to leave New York. Charleston and Savannah were evacuated in 1782, but November 25, 1783, came before the last British soldier left New York. When the troops under Washington entered New York city, they found a British flag nailed to the staff, the halyards gone, and the staff soaped. A sailor climbed the pole by nailing on cleats, pulled down the British flag, and reeved new halyards. The stars and stripes were then raised and saluted with thirteen guns.
[16] Washington refused to be paid for his services. Actual expenses during the war were all he would take, and these amounted to about $70,000.
[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES ABOUT 1783 SHOWING STATE CLAIMS TO
WESTERN LANDS]